Force of Nature by Suzanne Brockmann Page A

vital to national security.
    If Peggy were still alive, she was surely under duress. Held prisoner. Probably being tortured so that she’d divulge details of the case.
    She would be asked which of a variety of illegal activities was being investigated. What evidence had been collected and how damning was it? Who else was she working with?
    Jules sat at his desk, his insides tied in knots, long after most of the others in the office had gone home, reading and rereading the check-in reports Peggy had sent—in particular the last two.
    She’d always been aware of the possibility of interception, and she’d made each report sound like postcards to loved ones.
Weather’s been great. Enjoying both Sarasota and the job—same old routine, no news about vacation plans.
    Although, in her last two communications, she had mentioned—almost identically word for word—watching the sunset from the window of her room in the servants’ wing at Burns Point.
Mine’s the only room with such a glorious view
, she’d written.
Although it’s cold in there, colder even than the rest of the house, with the air-conditioning always running. I confess to missing the fresh air.
    Their experts had analyzed her word choices—the message wasn’t in code—and had come up with nothing, aside from the obvious clue as to the location of her room. It was frustrating as hell because that was it. After sending those last two reports, Peggy had disappeared.
    If she were dead, it was because of him.
    And wasn’t
that
the biggest crock of crap? Jules hadn’t forced Peggy to transfer to Florida. She’d left because of her own inflexibility—her own inability to accept diversity in the workplace.
    And yet Jules still felt guilty.
    He reached for the phone. Picked it up. Put it back down.
    His best friends, Alyssa and Sam, were out of the country on an assignment for Troubleshooters Incorporated—a private security team that was currently assisting the CIA. They were helping out in the hunt for a new arms dealer who’d shoved his way to the head of the international “most wanted” list by claiming to have a suitcase nuke for sale.
    It was probably just a distraction—some fiction devised by Osama or some other Big Bad—meant to tie up teams of agents and operatives. Keep ’em from beating the brush in the mountains of Pakistan, where most of al Qaeda was still hiding. Which was kind of overkill, considering that the disaster in Iraq was already getting
that
job done quite nicely for bin Laden. Still, the threat of a suitcase nuke couldn’t be ignored, despite the improbability of its existence.
    And so Alyssa—Jules’s former partner in the FBI—and her ex-SEAL husband, Sam, were somewhere overseas. Jules could call her on her cell, sure, and leave a message, but it’d probably be days before she’d be able to call back.
    Plus, God knows he’d already filled his yearly quota of whiny messages left on Alyssa’s voicemail.
    About Paolo. About gleaming, shiny, perfect Captain Ben Webster, and his latest freaking e-mail, sent from some computer tent in a Marine encampment on the outskirts of Baghdad.
    About…everything that Jules couldn’t have, but wanted.
    Like someone to talk to, when he was feeling like roadkill.
    As if on cue, there was a soft knock on his door.
    “Yeah,” Jules called. Maybe if he closed his eyes and wished really hard, it would be Ben, looking resplendent in his Marine uniform, echoing some of the words he’d written to Jules in that epic e-mail, just a few days ago.
I haven’t been sleeping, and it’s more than just the increased casualties, the kids going home missing arms and legs. I was lying on my cot, staring at the tent above me, and I suddenly thought “What am I doing?”
    “Hey. Mind if I come in?”
    Max?
    The door opened and it was definitely Max poking his head in.
    “What are you still doing here?” Jules asked his boss. “I thought you had some sort of thing tonight.”
    “I did. I stayed